


Loved and Lost - Or Not At All

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 23:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11115420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Inspired by I Know You by Skylar Grey.Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Loved and Lost - Or Not At All

Strength didn’t just come in the form of bulging muscles and a rough jaw, or a hardened exterior waiting to be cracked open. Sometimes, strength meant shielding your heart from the world you lived in so as to not corrupt who you were deep down. No one knew that better than Dr. Spencer Reid. 

From the moment you met him, you saw his strength - not physical - he was by no means imposing, but you could see the cracks in his eyes, the outside world so begging to get in and infiltrate his heart. But he wouldn’t let it in. It could be considered a blessing - his ability to shield his heart from the sadness he saw, but it could also be a curse. That ability was no doubt a double-edged sword. In shielding his heart from the travesties around him, he unknowingly built a wall around his heart all together, leaving him unable to be vulnerable to the kind of love he so craved. 

He told you as much when you met, not in so many words, but he divulged what he did, claimed he had to shut pieces of himself off in order to do the job, and said because of the job, he didn’t always have the chance to foster the kind of relationship he wanted. But there was something about him - his desire for vulnerability, the softness of his eyes, the gun-roughened skin of his hands - it made you want to know more and reveal the man beneath, so despite his warnings you told him you wanted to get to know him.

A year and a half into the relationship, you could see there was love in him, desperate to get out. At first, you told him that you would help him, be patient, and allow him to love you in time, but slowly, you were losing faith that he could admit his love for you. Somehow, in his mind, the second he said he loved you it was real, and therefore could be taken away - just like the last woman he loved.

“Something wrong?” he asked, bringing you out of your daze. He’d just returned from work, and with a tentative smile, you nodded that you were fine. But it wasn’t fine. He was holding back and he didn’t want to; you’d been patient enough.

Again, he looked at you, not saying anything. “I’m not okay.” You looked out the window, clutching just a little bit harder on the collar of the shirt you were wearing. “I’m not okay, Spence.”

“What’s wrong?” His eyes flashed in fear, trying with his brilliant mind to pinpoint what was wrong. But sometimes intelligence couldn’t give you every answer.

For a moment, you swallowed your words. You loved him. You knew he loved you even though he wouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t that be enough? Why did it matter so much to you that he say those words? Whatever faults that desire exacerbated, they were there, and you wanted him to say it. “Why can’t you say it?” you asked. You could feel you lip quivering and did your best to stop it. 

Immediately, his face dropped. “You know why, Y/N. You know how I feel about you.”

“But do I really, I know you care for me, but I don’t know that you love me, because you won’t let me close enough to know. Even after a year and a half together, I haven’t met your mother. I haven’t met your friends, save for Penelope, whom we ran into on accident. I feel things when you kiss me…when we’re together…but that isn’t everything.”

His eyes were watering, at a loss for where to head from here. “The second I admit anything, the second you could be taken away from me…like Maeve…I can’t have that happen again…”

“But what if this time, instead of me being taken away, it’s me walking away because you won’t let me in?” The tears were no longer at bay; you couldn’t keep them there. “I love you so much, Spence. I can see how badly you want to love me. What you’ve given already isn’t even a fraction of what you could give if you opened up to me. But if you continue like this…I’m afraid I can’t be the one. I don’t need a man to scream it from the rooftops, but I do need you to be able to say I love you as you look into my eyes.”

Slowly, you turned away from him and looked out the window, hoping he would just leave and make this easier on you, but he just stared at you. “I can’t lose you,” he whispered. “You’re the only thing grounding me anymore.”

“I don’t know what to say to that, Spence,” you sighed. “I’m glad I can be a grounding force, but I need something in return - nothing material - I want you. All of you. Not these bits and pieces that you’ve shown over the past 18 months. There is nothing you could say, nothing you could’ve done that would make me walk away if you’d just be honest with me.” For a moment, you let your words hang between you, before going over to your door and opening it, praying he would just walk out if he couldn’t say what he truly felt. “And Spence…I hate to break it to you, but if you believe that saying your true feelings means that I could be taken away, and that that would hurt you, then your feelings are there whether you voice them or not. If you choose not to voice them, I don’t know what else I can say.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked teary-eyed. 

Your eyes shot up from the ground. “Want?” you asked incredulously. “No! I don’t want you to leave! I love you! But I can’t continue in a relationship that I put everything into when I know that he doesn’t love me back. I just can’t do it anymore, Spencer. I love you so much, and I assume I always will, but you refuse to say it, which leads me to believe that you don’t actually love me. You care. That I can see. But you don’t love me, you just don’t know-”

“But I do!” he exclaimed, his lashes blinking away tears. “I do…love you.”

A wall of tears cascaded down your cheeks, hearing the words you never thought you’d hear. Words were one thing though - actions were another. “Why won’t you introduce me to the people you love? Your mother? If you love me, why do you insist on keeping me separate from everything and everyone else? Why won’t you let me know that side of you? I know you. I know your deepest desires, but you want let me know so much of yourself, and if you love me I don’t understand why that is.”

“Y/N, I love my job. I’m good at it. I feel like I’m doing good for the world. But this job has taken so much from me - pieces of myself that I can’t get back, people I love - if I ingrain you into the rest of my life, I could lose you too. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t.” His eyes stung with tears, and he wiped them away, but they quickly returned in greater numbers. 

Closing the space between you, you took his face in your hands and pressed your lips to his. “You haven’t introduced me to your family, any of them. I am completely isolated from everything else about you. If someone were to come in here right now and shoot me right between the eyes, do you think it would hurt any less because I haven’t been fully ingrained into your life?”

“I don’t know,” he breathed. “I’m scared to find out.”

You kissed him again, his lips tasting of the ocean - the one he was drowning in. “I know you are,” you replied. “But do you want to remain scared your entire life? Wasn’t it Alfred Lord Tennyson that said ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?’ Would you rather I’d never entered your life to begin with?”

“No,” he exclaimed. “No. No, I’d never wish that.” Something came over him then. Like something clicked in the cogs of his mind. “I love you…I love you. I’ll work on it. Like really work on it. I’ll tell them, my team, I’ll tell them about you tomorrow. Please…give me one more chance. Allow me to prove that I do love you…more than anything else in this world.”

Once more, you pressed your lips to his, sensing his relief and relaxing into him just a bit more. “This is it. This is the last time. I’ve heard this before.”

“I know,” he said quickly, his brown curls falling into your face. “And it’s going to be hard, but I can’t watch you leave…I love you.”


End file.
